During 2021, the Quality teams in Trouw Nutrition and Skretting continued to focus on implementing internal and external improvements aimed at delivering high standards of feed-to-food quality and safety for our customers.
Although COVID-19 still presented some challenges in supplier assessments, the lessons learned in 2020 allowed our teams to develop alternative ways to continue our engagement with suppliers. As such, a total of 37 physical and virtual audits were performed last year.
In line with the market demand for more traceability and transparency, we have also increased our focus on mitigating environmental, social and governance risks within our supply chain. This has given us the opportunity to collaborate more closely with our suppliers, and to understand their challenges and look for solutions that can be implemented in the short- and medium-term. As a result, we now offer improved and faster ways of reporting to our customers on the different feed-to-food quality areas that are relevant for them.
An example of this was Nutreco China’s collaboration with SEDEX to ensure that our amino acid suppliers obtained the necessary SEDEX Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) to meet UK customers’ social responsibility compliance requirements, ensuring that there was no interruption in supply and avoiding unnecessary challenges during the international attention given the Uyghurs situation in Xinjian Province China.
Feed-to-food quality and safety has always been directly related to sustainability at Nutreco. That said, developments in the market have also helped us to widen our perspective and put more focus on what is relevant for customers and consumers – extending beyond the quality of the raw materials that we use in our feeds. Environmental and social agendas keep evolving, which in turn leads us to adapt and to work much closer with our suppliers to bring them into this journey.
During 2022, we will work to update sustainability assessments for the ingredients that we use in our feeds. This will be in line with the developments of the market and the needs of our customers.
At the same time, we will work to strengthen the sustainability checklist implemented during our supplier audits, and also implement specific audits based on sustainability criteria rather than only on quality. This approach will help us to put more focus on regions, ingredients and suppliers that have a higher sustainability risk.
“The sustainability agenda is moving faster than ever, and we will keep working closely with our suppliers to embark them on this journey. We will keep adapting to the challenges that the market brings to ensure high feed-to-food quality and safety standards for our customers.”
“We are in a process of continuous learning. We have our house in order, but at the same time we know that we can still do more and better to keep collaborating and measuring the sustainability performance of our suppliers.”